On the internet, fans of "The Dark City" and "The Shawshank Redemption" have launched a rating war on IMDb. Both sides, armed with one-star ratings as their weapons, are constantly attacking each other, rallying friends and standing firm without retreating.
Despite its initial box office failure and subsequent Oscar snub, "The Shawshank Redemption" has, over the past few decades, become an IMDb legend thanks to media and fan praise. Through multiple re-releases, TV airings, and video and DVD rentals, it has amassed a substantial fan base, including organized groups led by people like Christian Franklin.
Organized attacks are far more powerful than scattered assaults!
Compared to "The Shawshank Redemption," "The Dark City" isn't lagging. Led by Daisy's IMDb discussion group, along with Murphy Stanton fan clubs in New York, Los Angeles, and other cities, and professional troll organizations under Murphy's direction, all have joined the battle.
The past decade has seen Murphy rise rapidly, his fan base is younger and broader thanks to over a dozen films that have cemented his appeal.
Overall, fans of "The Shawshank Redemption" are downvoting "The Dark City," while Murphy's fans are doing the same to "The Shawshank Redemption."
However, aside from fan-led actions and some promotional stunts by 20th Century Fox, Murphy, CAA, and Fox haven't invested much into this. They haven't mobilized professional promotional teams for this skirmish. Given the current momentum of "The Dark City," this minor conflict won't hinder it. Fox's strategy is to generate buzz rather than engage directly, knowing that Murphy's substantial fan base is more than enough to handle it.
Fox has a quantitative assessment and knows Murphy's die-hard fans outnumber those of "The Shawshank Redemption." This online rating war is destined to end in their favor.
The rating war on IMDb between "The Dark City" and "The Shawshank Redemption" has intensified.
Mutual damage between the two films is inevitable. Within three days, despite many fans rating "The Dark City" highly, its IMDb rating still dropped to 9.5.
However, "The Shawshank Redemption" fared worse, dropping 0.2 points from 9.2 to 9.0 in the same period.
"The Shawshank Redemption" not only lost more points but also fell from second to third on the IMDb Top 250, overtaken by "The Godfather."
As the IMDb ratings for both films continued to drop, fervent fans on each side poured one-star ratings on the other. By Thursday, "The Shawshank Redemption's" one-star votes had surged to nearly 7%, while "The Dark City" had around 4%, but its tens of thousands of ten-star votes kept it securely at the top with a 9.5 rating.
Often, fan actions are spontaneous and fervent. Fans of both films not only downrated each other but also attacked the comment sections, escalating to insults.
For example, fans of "The Shawshank Redemption" labeled "The Dark City" fans as brainless, unable to distinguish right from wrong.
This internet-based rating war, determined by the number of participating users, favored Murphy, whose fanbase, born in the internet age, vastly outnumbered the nostalgic fans of "The Shawshank Redemption." Although Murphy's fans were relatively older, they were still much younger on average than "The Shawshank Redemption" fans, who couldn't compete online with the younger generation.
In the following days, Murphy's fans almost completely took over "The Shawshank Redemption's" IMDb section, dropping its rating from 9.0 to 8.8, knocking it out of the Top 5.
Simultaneously, thanks to fan efforts and organization, "The Dark City's" rating stabilized at 9.4.
Despite attempts to maintain their efforts, the number of effective IMDb users is limited, and "The Shawshank Redemption" fans began to struggle.
Seeing their film drop from second to outside the top five, Christian Franklin and his group decided to widen the war. Some fans pretended to be fans of "The Dark City," attacking other top-five films like "The Godfather," "12 Angry Men," and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King."
In less than half a day, these films saw a surge in one-star votes.
As more fans joined, "The Dark City" fans also attacked other films, pretending to be "The Shawshank Redemption" fans, and other film fans retaliated by downvoting both "The Dark City" and "The Shawshank Redemption."
IMDb, although accustomed to troll activity, saw its order severely disrupted by this fan war. Especially online, self-control is often lacking, and insults were rampant.
These conflicts spread to many film forums and social media sites, even reaching Murphy's official Twitter and Facebook accounts, where abusive comments flooded in.
The media quickly picked up on the situation.
"Before 'The Dark City' premiered, 'The Shawshank Redemption' held the top spot on the IMDb Top 250, followed by 'The Godfather' and 'The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.'"
"Then one day, Murphy Stanton's 'The Dark City' burst onto the scene like a dazzling comet, breaking the tranquility of the night sky. Countless slumbering fans opened their eyes, drawn to the spectacle, and the gears of fate began to turn."
"For many Hollywood and North American film fans, Murphy Stanton was already a black-lit deity, and 'The Dark City' was a new god, drawing numerous believers, absorbing vast amounts of faith. The fervent devotees swore to elevate their deity to the pinnacle of the world."
"To defeat the seemingly invincible 'The Shawshank Redemption,' they tirelessly rated 'The Dark City' ten stars and 'The Shawshank Redemption' one star, while 'The Shawshank Redemption' fans did the same..."
Reports in the Los Angeles Times and The Hollywood Reporter expanded this online rating war to traditional media.
Some tabloids, not content with just stirring the pot, claimed that Murphy's fans and "The Shawshank Redemption" fans had taken their online battles to the streets of Los Angeles, resulting in physical altercations.
Although these reports were exaggerated, there was some truth to them. A minor scuffle did occur at an event in North Hollywood, but it was nothing more than a simple physical confrontation, not as severe as reported.
Such news, though, fueled curiosity. For an old film like "The Shawshank Redemption," it was inconsequential, but for "The Dark City," still in theaters, it added to its allure.
Many who previously ignored "The Dark City" became curious, wondering just how good it was to cause such a commotion.
Curiosity often turns into action, drawing new viewers to "The Dark City" over the weekend.
Thus, in its fourth weekend in North America, "The Dark City" saw a drop of less than 50% from the previous weekend, earning another $38.3 million, surpassing the $24 million opening of "Now You See Me" and securing its fourth consecutive weekend at the top of the box office.
Including weekday earnings, "The Dark City" had grossed $632.1 million in North America, surpassing "The Avengers" ($623.35 million) and climbing to third place on the all-time North American box office list.
Meanwhile, the film continued its international run, expanding to 124 countries and regions, reaching a global total of $1.76287 billion!
"The Dark City" also surpassed "The Avengers" in the global box office rankings.
Now, whether in North America or worldwide, only two films remained ahead of "The Dark City": "Titanic" and "Avatar."
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